I’m going through one of those weeks where I’m finishing several books at once, and they are so interrelated that in putting one down and picking up the next, I don’t feel that I’m reading separate books, but rather looking at an event from different angles, or through different facets of a prism.
Kathleen Raine: “Spokesmen of the now dominant culture speak of an “advance” from “ignorance” and magic to “knowledge” and material science; yet in terms of philosophy, religion , and the arts the same event can only be seen in opposite terms, as a decline from knowledge to ignorance.”
A striking thought, that carries me through Gibbon to the nuclear arms race: what some perceive to be a descent into hubric madness, others see as the height of civilization. A bit like the Fiddler Crab with the claw so big he can hardly carry it.
Proclus read Plato the way his contemporaries read the Bible. In fact, comparing Proclus to John Chrysostom would not be entirely inappropriate. They both take a no-nonsense approach to explaining a subtle and challenging text to the population at large. Of course, Proclus writes to the cream of the empire’s students, while Chrysostom speaks to the cream of Constantinople’s aristocracy, so the tones are slightly different. I have often thought, for example, that Chrysostom is like Preet Bharara, but when I put Proclus in that lineup, he is too sanitary and severe. Still they share an aura of divinity, the reflected light of which helps illuminate the life of we mortals.
So Proclus reads Plato deeply, and weighs every syllable. While Christians of his century read the apostolic and Nicene fathers as satellite material, our philosopher looked to the Mathematics of Nicomachus and the Astronomy of Ptolomy, not to mention Homer and Hesiod, which had been the “biblical texts” of the Greco-Roman world for so many centuries.
Proclus is a major influence on 6th century Roman-in-Ostrogothic-Italy Boethius, who also loved the works of Nicomachus and Ptolomy. In fact Boethius felt it was his obligation to translate works on all seven of the queenly scenes, the quadrivium (math, geometry, music, astronomy) and the kingly trivium (rhetoric, logic, grammar), as defined by Martianus Capella. But unlike Proclus, Boethius actually allows himself to comment on Christianity itself.
It might not seem so strange at first; writing on Christianity was the activité du jour, and it was one ticket to being read by your peers. A noble writer could find success here, though an unordained laymen might not find as much of an audience as a trusted bishop. What’s remarkable is that, for me at least, Boethius is the aristocratic noble we are meant to think of when we hear of “conversions of convenience”. He spent his life immersed in the culture of his ancestors, adhering to an academic program whose roots lay decades before the birth of Christ.
The second eyebrow-raising feature of Boethius’s work is the fact that he writes as a Nicene Catholic with the eyes of an Arian court watching him. To really understand the subtle interplay of Gothic-Roman relations in Ostrogothic Italy is a fascinating topic with complicated, interacting (and international!) levels; let it suffice to say that Boethius was exceptionally popular among his people, and was eventually executed by the Gothic regime he worked so hard to glorify (or so it would seem).
But let me stress, Boethius was not a card-carrying, Nicene pushing Christian. The five works of his opuscula sacra present us with the same logic-loving Boethius that would have made him a boon companion to Proclus had they been contemporary. No, though there is nothing to suggest that he is insincere, Boethius approaches Christianity cautiously. He seems to write about it because he knows it’s a topic he’s supposed to address. But the joy he feels is not for the ineffable mystery of Christ, but for the joy of athletic logic. As a result, we have an intellectual rigor that is rare in early Christian writers. Boethius is [a huge fan of]/[owes a lot to] Augustine, and the influence is clear both in the language and the thought process, but not even Augustine brings such naked logic to approaching a theological problem. But the caution is palpable; where the logical works of Boethius are presented with confidence, the theological works are big questions, and addressed to his friend John the Deacon, whom he earnestly entreats to read and to correct any mistakes he finds.
Boethius is singular in this Proclus-esqe approach to contemporary Christian debate (for example, in barely citing the Bible at all), but the Christological controversy he chooses to engage with had been raging since the time of Proclus himself: the exact nature and person of Christ, and specifically the heretical opinions of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, who had said some inflammatory things on the subject. And nobody in the world was more offended by Nestorius than the pugnacious Cyril of Alexandria.
The debate is not quite as complicated as some would have you believe, though like the Arian controversy, it hinges on tiny words, syllables, sometimes one letter in a word, translations between Greek, Latin, and Syriac, and fine hair-splitting definitions. In a nutshell, Nestorius says that Christ is 2 persons with 2 natures: he is perfect man with a rational soul, and fully divine God. Cyril of Alexandria immediately starts frothing at the mouth, and says no, Christ is two natures in ONE person. The human and divine are intermingled but not mixed, fully united yet fully separate, in an unknowable way. This, he insists, is Nicene orthodoxy, and he quickly makes it clear that this is the hill he is ready to die on. Several similar heresies had been defeated over the past decades: Christ is a man piloted by a divine soul: heresy; Christ is fully divine, and does not suffer: heresy; Christ is fully human, and was adopted by God at his baptism: heresy. The unity of the church and the souls of every member of the empire were at stake.
Cyril’s uncle Theodore had been bishop of Alexandria, and was largely responsible for the treacherously unfair treatment that ended up killing John Chrysostom, our passionate explainer of texts. Cyril inherited his uncle’s bulldog temper and elbowed his way into the bishopric of Alexandria after one intervening bishop. There, as the third most powerful Christian in the empire, he flexed his muscles. Nestorius, and his unacceptable theology, never stood a chance.
I say without hesitation that Cyril was the third most powerful (and not the second, or fourth, or fifth) because he absolutely bullied the next most powerful bishop, John of Antioch, in an exceptionally public way. At Ephesus, where the assembled bishops of the empire were meant to convene and sort the whole mess out all out, Cyril got impatient and started the council without John of Antioch (who was actually intending to support Cyril). John was furious, and when he arrived he excommunicated Cyril. Names were called. Cyril whines like a little bitch over the tiniest phrases. Finally, Cyril buffalos John into condemning Nestorius (which, again, was his original plan) and publicly eating crow in front the entire Christian world. He even rejects John’s first apology, saying it isn’t humble enough. This is the sort of public browbeating that Cyril made his career on, ever since he and his “hospital workers”—read gangster monks—raised hell all through Egypt, breaking into heretical churches, breaking cups, and starting fires.
The Christological Controversy of the 5th century culminates in the Council of Chalcedon, 451, a few years after Cyril’s death. Of pivotal importance at that council is the Tome of Leo, a doctrinal letter by Pope Leo the Great, and the only contribution from the west. Italy, Gaul, and Spain, not speaking Greek and without an opulent glittering court as backdrop, did not care about the Christological controversy with the same bloodthirsty passion that the east did. To them, the Nicene Creed was enough, and why complicate anything with innovations? Leo didn’t want to go to Chalcedon just to listen to a bunch of fops and dandies fight about prepositions (the questions of Christ of vs. Christ in, which delighted Boethius). He sends, à la Elvis putting his car on tour rather than giving concerts, his Tome, which defines the western belief. Some love it, some hate it, but in the end the council accepts it as orthodox, along with the letters of Cyril that anathematized Nestorius so baldly. Cyril, the thug, becomes a saint.
But Leo did care about these issues. They were the issues of the day, as environmentalism or racism are for us. Leo also shared some characteristics with Chyrsostom, in the sense that, in their sermons at least, they both come across as friendly, good shepherds, working for the community. Although Leo doesn’t write hour long sermons like Chrysostom (Leo’s tend to clock in around 15 minutes), they are pithy, meaningful, and have a welcoming tone. But even still, during his Christmas Day sermon, he veers off into a catalog of heresies, and warns his flock against them with all the fear he can muster. He saves the worst heresy for last, the most dangerous, the most perverting, the most subtle and sneaky: that of Nestorius.
And so the last few days have been fascinating for me, as I finish each of these strands of reading and watch them all tangle up with each other. And I love it when that happens.
Boethius: De institutione musica
Chadwick, Henry. Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 1990.
Cyril of Alexandria. Letters Vol. 1 (J. McEnerney, trans). Washington D.C.: CUA Press, 2007
Proclus, Elements of Theology (T. Taylor, trans)
Leo the Great. Sermons A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. 28 vols. in 2 series. 1886–1889. 2nd series Vol. 12.
Marinus of Samaria The Life of Proclus; or, Concerning Happiness: Being the Biographical Account of an Ancient Greek Philosopher (K. Guthrie, trans). Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1986.
9.6.20, edited 9.10.20